SHAMED VALVANO TO STEP DOWN

Jim Valvano accepted blame Friday for a North Carolina State basketball program guilty of NCAA violations and academic neglect and said he will abide by recommendations that he resign as the school's athletic director.

Valvano said he hopes to remain as head basketball coach, and N.C. State officials indicated Valvano's position as coach is secure, despite a University of North Carolina system report Friday that assailed the academic record of Valvano's team. The report also anticipates NCAA sanctions against N.C. State because of violations within the basketball program.

The University of North Carolina system's Board of Governors, meeting in Chapel Hill, called for Valvano's removal as athletic director by Dec. 31 after receiving results of its six-month probe into N.C. State basketball, which was prompted by publicity surrounding "Personal Fouls," a book that alleges corruption within the Wolfpack program.

N.C. State's Board of Trustees, meeting later on the Raleigh campus, took no action on the recommendation, but outgoing Chancellor Bruce Poulton said Valvano's resignation as AD would be accepted after an NCAA investigation of the Wolfpack program is completed in about six weeks.

Poulton, who resigned Monday in the wake of the athletic problems, and Board of Trustees Chairman John Gregg both said Valvano should remain as head basketball coach.

"I accept responsibility and accountability," said Valvano, State's coach since 1980 and AD since '86. "If I had something to do over, it would be (academics). I very much tried to stay out of academics. ...

"The report is very accurate and very precise. On the one hand it certainly points out real problems of our basketball program, but also gives road of direction and hope of ways to solve them."

Sam Poole, a Board of Governors vice-chairman who headed the university probe, said the board also debated Valvano's possible dismissal as head basketball coach during a three-hour closed executive session.

"Cooler heads prevailed," Poole said. "We're a policy board. That should be handled on campus."

Valvano is paid $100,000 to serve as head coach and is not compensated for his AD duties. Unless Valvano is found guilty of NCAA violations, State would have to pay him $500,000 if it fired him as coach.

The principal finding of the Poole Commission was that "the evidence is clear that the academic processses and standards of North Carolina State University have been misused in a number of instances to benefit some individual basketball players," UNC system President C.D. Spangler said in a 29-page report to the Board of Governors.

"The academic abuses that have occurred have not been in the form of violations of the written rules of the institution or of the NCAA," Spangler said. "The spirit, not the letter of the law, has been broken."

"I have no doubt that occurred," Poulton said. "Nor do I doubt that it occurs at every Division I institution in the United States."

Spangler anticipates NCAA sanctions against the Wolfpack program because of violations discovered by the probe, which focused on the 1986-87 season, and included: players selling complimentary tickets; players selling their basketball shoes, which they receive free; players receiving credit not available to other students at a jewelry store and players receiving discounts at a restaurant.

A possible violation was reported to the NCAA just Thursday, when State officials learned that former players Charles Shackleford and Kelsey Weems lived in a townhouse owned by Valvano. The arrangement would not constitute a violation if the players paid full rent, which Valvano said they did.

Spangler said the arrangement was discovered by the basketball office after 60 days - the townhouse was rented through an agent - and that the players then moved.

The investigation found no evidence to substantiate allegations in "Personal Fouls" that players received money and cars from boosters.

After its closed session, the Board of Governors unanimously approved 14 recommendations-directives made by Spangler. Those included:

Ordering all system chancellors to separate athletic directorship from any coaching position by July 1. That will affect basketball coaches Jeff Mullins of UNC Charlotte, Jeff Capel of Fayetteville State and Clarence Gaines of Winston-Salem State, who also serve as ADs.

Urging the Atlantic Coast Conference to make freshmen ineligible for varsity competition.

Developing a mandatory drug-testing program for athletes. State's program is voluntary.

Spangler was most critical of State's academic problems and said the investigation "found instances in which it was clear that players were not taking courses that formed a coherent program of study aimed at meeting a degree requirement but were instead taking those courses that afforded them the best chance of staying eligible as long as possible."

One unidentified player cited completed four seasons of eligibility with a 1.122 grade-point average and 76 credits, 52 shy of graduation.

Spangler assailed the graduation rate of Valvano's players. Of Valvano's 43 recruits since 1980, nine are returning team members, eight have graduated from State and three have graduated from other schools, giving State a 32 percent graduation rate.

State's graduation rate for all students is 22 percent after four years, 52 percent after five.

Of the 23 players who did not graduate, three left in good standing academically, five were under academic warning and 15 were suspended.